Greatest test XI from each nation

CheekyMonkey

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You are very much entitled to your opinion but simply do not agree.
He probably makes it in top ten bowlers of all time for me but no higher.
Not going to convince me otherwise. I rate on what I see from watching. His stats are great but I think he had era where not as many good bats as some other earlier eras plus he did benefit from bowling with the likes of Warne, Gillespie etc.
Do not get me wrong. He was a great bowler but I simply rate all the other guys I mentioned earlier clearly better on what I viewed. He probably has better stats but they are not everything with me.

to each his own, but i love a good discussion.

just out of curiousity, what exactly do you rate bowlers on?

im not a stats guy either, i go on achievements and mcgrath has more than any other bowler, in addition to having a stranglehold on the the best batsmen of his era, such as tendulkar and lara, who most would rate as great players.

he was also fascinating to watch, i have never seen a bowler set batsmen up better than mcgrath. he had a real cerebral side to his game and he was impossible to beat.

compared, to a guy like akram (good job ignoring his match-fixing, btw) who would simply wait for the ball to get old and try bowling an unplayable delivery every over, mcgrath was an absolute genius and streets ahead in terms of intelligence and ability.
 
Australia

Ponsford
Hayden
Bradman
Ponting
S Waugh
Border (c)
Gilchrist
Miller
Warne
Lillee
McGrath

England

Hobbs
Sutcliffe
Hammond
Barrington
Paynter (bit of a controversial one, but his record is very good, even though he only played 20 tests)
Compton
Botham
Knott
Larwood
Laker
Trueman

Syd Barnes very unlucky. Could drop Paynter or Larwood for him.
 

La Vache

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Anwar
Sohail
Miandad
Yousuf
Zaheer Abbas
Inzamam
Imran(C)
Bari (W)
Wasim
Waqar
Qadir
 

PaddyO

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Warne was selected as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Century, the others were Bradman, Sobers, Hobbs and Richards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisden_Cricketers_of_the_Century

I think that would entitle him to a spot in the best ever Australian Test XI ahead of any other spinner.
Not necessarily.


I am not saying Warne isn't great, but I think OReilly and Grimmett are better (very marginally) superior to him.

It's the slightest of degrees, and it's only my opinion.
 
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to each his own, but i love a good discussion.

just out of curiousity, what exactly do you rate bowlers on?

im not a stats guy either

I simply base it on watching cricket and having my own eye for detecting individuals and their ability, application and execution relative to conditions, players and circumstances. There is a lot of variables there but as someone that was a keen bowler myself I not only look at what I am watching but think about what each bowler can try given their own attributes what they do. You also need to consider what other bowlers in same team do that helps certain bowlers get wickets based on collective pressure. I rate McGrath highly but I do think he was in a team wit usually 2 or 3 other quality bowlers. He could not do the same tings with ball that Lillee, Hadlees etc. could do. Just think he would have struggled against likes of Viv Richards in comparison to a Lillee nd think Lillee would have had even better figures with a Warne in same side.
End of the day I call it on what I watched. Lillee and Hadlee had me in more awe of what they could do when I watched. McGrath impressed me but no in awe.
 

PaddyO

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Warne would be in a World Xl as the best spinner of all time.
Warne is quite possibly the greatest bowler ever seen. Not having him in the XI is as bad as not having Bradman in there.
I had a chuckle at seeing Warne left out of somebody's side.

Surprisingly, there was cricket played prior to the 1990s.

And not having Warne is in no way comparable to not having Bradman. Wanna talk about why?
 
Surprisingly, there was cricket played prior to the 1990s.

And not having Warne is in no way comparable to not having Bradman. Wanna talk about why?
Warne is the greatest bowler ever seen. Leaving him out is comparable to Bradman, because those two would literally be the first 2 players selected for a world XI.
 

PaddyO

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Warne is the greatest bowler ever seen. Leaving him out is comparable to Bradman, because those two would literally be the first 2 players selected for a world XI.

I'm not one to rely on stats, but you do realise that both OReilly and Grimmett are leg spinners who have better averages than Warne and who both took more wickets per test than Warne?

Warne being the greatest bowler is nothing more than your opinion.

And when a leggie comes along who averages 11 at a SR of 25 and takes ten wickets per test, then maybe he could be compared with Bradman...
 
I'm not one to rely on stats, but you do realise that both OReilly and Grimmett are leg spinners who have better averages than Warne and who both took more wickets per test than Warne?

Warne being the greatest bowler is nothing more than your opinion.

And when a leggie comes along who averages 11 at a SR of 25 and takes ten wickets per test, then maybe he could be compared with Bradman...
And both played back in the days of uncovered pitches, and timeless Tests meaning the pitches would absolutely crumble.
 
Ok, they must've been s**t then.

Guess that's why Bradman selected them in his all time XI.
Which was picked before Warne's career was even halfway through. Michael ******* Slater was considered a candidate. Nobody would have him even close to Australia's greatest XI, he'd be behind Ponsford, Woodfull, Hayden, Taylor, Lawry, Morris, Langer at the very least as an opener. You're so far off the mark it's not funny.
 
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Surprisingly, there was cricket played prior to the 1990s.

And not having Warne is in no way comparable to not having Bradman. Wanna talk about why?
You don't like the bloke so you are somehow trying to justify your stupidity. Warne once took the most test wickets, is Australia's leading wicket taker and played in a time where the pitches in Australia were built for fast bowlers. Also 1 of only 5 cricketers to be named in the Wisden top 5 cricketers of the century.
 
And fwiw, Sobers is second picked in a world XI, not Warne...

the guys who averaged zero in his one day career. clearly not suited to the modern game;)
 

The Passenger

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I would certainly have Warne in my Australian XI. Grimmett and O'Reilly are certainly worthy candidates. One wonders how many wickets Grimmett would have taken if he didn't debut till he was nearly 30, or maybe even 30. Little known fact that he was born in NZ. It would've been great if there was more footage of them. Grimmett had a very strange action, bowled with a bent or near bent arm, and a cap on.

Warne is the greatest bowler ever seen.
That is debatable. It's debatable whether he was even the best bowler in his own team, or the best spinner of his era.

I do rate him the spinner of his era, but it's not a gimme. Murali has claims, even forgetting the throwing. As for his own team, I'd rate him and McGrath pretty much even. Don't even know if I could split them.
 

The Passenger

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I can't be ****ed looking it up now but going against Grimmett is that he didn't have a great record against England, and in those days it was really just Australia and England. He tore up South Africa and I think India. In his last test series he took nearly 50 wickets at an age well over 40.
 

The Passenger

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As always curiosity got the better of me but the Clarrie Grimmett story has always fascinated me. His Wisden obituary and obit from Bill O'Reilly are very interesting reads on his Cricinfo Profile - http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/5443.html

Moved to Australia from NZ in his early 20's but with WWI there was no test cricket or shield cricket until 1918 when he was 27. I'm not entirely sure why (I have read elsewhere that being a kiwi he was heavily discriminated against) but couldn't get a run in shield cricket till he was 32, then got his test debut a couple of years later. Played his final test at age 45, and took 73 wickets in a shield season at age 48. The only dent he has in his record is an average of 32 in test cricket v England.

His 513 shield wickets still remains a comfortable club house leader in the all time list, with Michael Kasprowicz back on 441. To put into perspective that 513 figure, the next highest wicket taker at the time of his retirement (1940) was Fleetwood-Smith with 246, and it wasn't until 1971 that Tony Lock became the second person to pass 300 wickets in shield cricket.

By no means do I think he is our greatest spinner, and I'd have him #3 behind Warne and O'Reilly but I really reckon his story is one of the most interesting in Australian cricket.
 
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PaddyO

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You're so far off the mark it's not funny.

Oh really :rolleyes:

Because I have a different opinion to you I must be way off the mark.

Bradman described O'Reilly as the "greatest bowler I ever faced or watched". Is that enough?

On Grimmett "As it was, he averaged exactly six wickets per Test (he didn't bowl in the Melbourne Test against South Africa in February 1932), with a striking rate of a wicket every 67 balls and an average cost of a mere 2.16 runs per six-ball over. There were some great batsmen around in those days, and some heartbreaking (for bowlers) pitches. Grimmett's rewards were earned by canniness and hard work. Often enough he got Hammond and Bradman out, and never did he bowl mechanically. The straight or barely-breaking ball was a main weapon, gaining him a high proportion of lbws...
His 29 wickets in England in the 1930 series were a record, and it is accepted that his bowling was at least as important to Australia as was Bradman's phenomenal batting (he took 144 wickets at 16.85 on the tour). In each of the next two home series - against West Indies and South Africa - he gathered 33 wickets. Highly effective in England again in 1934, he took 25 more (O'Reilly 28), and in 1935-36 he set a record for Australia which still stands of 44 wickets against South Africa. He crowned his career with his 200th Test wicket in that sensational rubber, the first bowler to do so".

Hardly "way off the mark" to (gasp) contemplate them to be at least the equals of Warne...
 

JimDocker

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Surprisingly, there was cricket played prior to the 1990s.

And not having Warne is in no way comparable to not having Bradman. Wanna talk about why?

You have been reasonably defensive when people have criticised your choice as you feel you are entitled to your opinion, but you belittle others' opinions by suggesting that we are simply only capable of choosing players from the 90s onwards.

I have seen Gary Sobers play (Admittedly, in a festival match when he was past his best) so I am hardly a kid that is incapable of looking backwards. I am pretty widely read on cricket from the early years and would give due credit to Grimmett and O'Reilly (who I loved as a commentator and writer).


Warne was the most dominant cricketer of his era on all sorts of surfaces. He was selected to bowl on wickets that no other spinner would have been picked. When Wisden name him in the top 5 cricketers of all time, it is hardly a lack of vision for those of us who think he is the best spinner ever.

For the record, I don't like the guy. He is a big mouth, obnoxious bogan, but I am leaving my distaste for people out of my criteria for deciding who is the better cricketer.
 
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